I glance at the screen before pressing it to my ear again. “Yeah. You downstairs?”
“Yeah,” she says, and it’s then I hear the little lunch rush going on in Delilah’s. “You okay?”
With a sigh, I hoist myself off the bed. “Yeah, fine. Just got off the phone with Constance.”
Beck’s tone goes all-knowing and soft, and it makes me a little bit more depressed if I’m being honest. “Oh. And how is your Mom doing?”
I take a peek at myself in the long mirror propped against my bedroom wall. In a white v-neck t-shirt and ripped jeans, I look very plain. Finger-combing my dark hair a little, I narrow my eyes on my reflection. Maybe my hair is a bit dull? Is she right?
“She’s fine. On her way to some important lunch or something. Anyway, I’m sliding my sandals on now. I’ll be right down, babe.”
With my phone tucked inside, I slide my belt bag across my chest. I often wonder if I’m too old to wear a Lululemon fanny pack across my chest like a twenty-year-old but fuck it. It’s cute. Why not? Birks on my feet and a smile on my face, I head down and crash into Beck’s open arms at the bottom of the stairs.
“Hi boo,” I say warmly, nuzzling into her neck. Seeing my best friend after a phone call with my Mom is probably the best medicine. But because I’m always happy to see her, she doesn’t quite realize what a respite she really is.
“Hi,” she says as we peel apart from our greeting embrace. “You look great. How’s it upstairs? Feeling homey yet?”
I tug at the hem of my white t-shirt, catching my profile in the reflection of the stainless steel refrigerator we’re next to. Maybe this outfit isn’t as cute as I thought. I kind of have a little pooch in these jeans, and this t-shirt does nothing to cover it. I place my palm on my lower belly reactively and keep my smile plastered on.
“It’s only been a week but yeah, pretty homey,” I say, realizing that the little apartment upstairs actually did feel like a home already… until that phone call.
“How’d your Mom like it?” Beck asks, and I don’t miss the subtle twitch in her eye and how her tone goes cautious like the topic rests on thin, cracking ice.
I’ve kind of gotten angry in the past when she brought up my Mom and her continual negativity. It’s not like I don’t know it and wish she was different, but she is who she is.
“She cautioned me about breathing in too much deli smell and getting bloated from it,” I reply as I slide into a bench seat across from Beck. The tables are all indoor picnic style, and I adore them. Delilah may be right–even though I could live without the all-day bakery smell, this place could be growing on me.
Beck cocks one eyebrow. “Bloated from the smell?”
I lift the plastic laminated menu from the table. “Yup.”
“Jesus Christ,” she exhales, shaking her head as she, too, lifts a menu from the table. “Goldie, you were right to come here. Okay? You’re good here. You’re good, period, but you’re goodhere, in Oakcreek.”
I smile as my eyes trip over all the items on the menu that I just can’t eat.
Being with Beck feeds my soul, and that’s likely the only feeding going on. That conversation with my Mom has left my stomach sour, and the idea of eating sounds awful. But Beck is here, and I don’t want her to worry, so I quickly find something small to stave off questions and worry.
“I think I’ll have some chicken noodle soup.” I avert my gaze from the menu to the street outside. I love little downtown streets like this. There are always a few friendly faces walking by, lights flickering in shop windows selling things that would never have a storefront in a big city–like antiques, stationary, or specialty foods. It’s quaint and welcoming, and Beck’s right–just what I need right now.
When I face my beautiful blonde friend again, she’s staring at me. “That’s all? Aren’t you hungry from organizing and unpacking?” The way her gaze intensifies as she awaits my response does nothing to the pang in my gut.
Nonchalantly I wave a hand through the air as if it’s no big deal. “Nah, I’ve been lazy as hell the last few days. Still have plenty of unpacking.”
Beck focuses on the lazy comment, thank goodness. I don’t feel like having my defenses up, pretending or spending energy rerouting people. It gets exhausting. “Not unpacked? You okay? Wanna talk about anything?”
When I’d first come to Oakcreek a few months back, I couch-surfed with Beck and her son Jett. The job loss and everything that happened in the city were too raw and real to talk about. Finally, though, a few weeks ago, I opened up and shared every last agonizing and mortifying detail about what had happened. About what led me to be jobless and single in Oakcreek at age thirty-seven when just a few years back I was none of those things.
“Honestly, just enjoying the last few days or weeks of having nowhere to go and nothing to do.” That part is kind of true, though being unemployed isn’t everything you dream of the morning you wake up with a wicked hangover and curse the fact you still have to go to work.
I’m getting bored, and I feel directionless, and mostly? The thing I wouldn’t ever say out loud? I feel a little worthless. Without a title keeping my chin up, an income filling me with safety, or a relationship to provide partnership, I don’t really know who or what I am other than a person in existence.
And that existentialist thought is terrifying.
“Interview coming up?” Beck asks as she stacks our menus together.
I nod. “Frank says he’s got a few things in the works. And I trust him. After we reworked my resume, I had several callbacks.”
Beck’s dad set me up with the son of his friend, Frank Trello Jr., and not romantically. He’s a headhunter and not the murdering kind. As a professional scout, he helps you with your resume and finds you multiple job opportunities.